“I don’t know,” returned Serbot harshly. “Maybe they should have upset their boat and drowned, coming down through those rapids. If something like that had happened—”
“No, no,” Stannart interrupted. “Your men will have taken care of Brewster and his party by now. But we still need the boys to help us. Suppose we take them up the river, as far as the torn portion of your map—”
Stannart was leaning forward, pointing to the map with one hand, but he had his other hand in his pocket, as though gripping a gun.
“Of course!” exclaimed Serbot, who had one hand in a pocket, too. “Then they could take us back to where they came from, to this El Dorado that Nara talked about.”
Both Stannart and Serbot were glaring hard at Biff as though now it was his turn to speak. Biff’s throat was dry, for he realized that these two men, in their desire for gold, would think nothing about snuffing out his life and Kamuka’s. Somebody had to speak for Biff right then—and somebody did, from the door of the cabin.
“Nobody talks about El Dorado,” a crackly voice announced, “except Joe Nara, the man who owns it.”
There in the doorway stood old Joe, both his guns drawn from their holsters, one fixed on Stannart, the other on Serbot. At Nara’s nod, the two men brought their hands from their pockets empty. They knew the old man meant business.
“Pretty smart, both of you,” Nara said. “I never even guessed your game, Stannart, probably because I never met you before. But having seen you now, I think I would have known you for a rat from away back.
“But I figured you out, Serbot. I knew what you were after—that cargo of mine. So I stayed with them.” Nara gave his head a quick tilt, to smile at Biff and Kamuka. “Yes, boys, I sent my Wai Wais down to the rapids, while I stayed in the cabin of my monteria.
“Next thing I knew”—Nara gave a chuckle—“you were bringing me downriver, and a right good job you were making of it, too. Finally, you hauled up beside this yacht and went on board. When you didn’t come back, I reckoned you might be needing old Joe, so I moseyed on board, and here I am.”